Mmm... Chocolate Cupcakes!

It's National Chocolate Cupcake Day!

With these made-up "everyday is a holiday" days, I feel kind of torn - on the one hand it's getting crazy, and EVERYTHING has a day; on the other hand I love celebrating things that bring me joy, and chocolate cupcakes bring me joy.

While searching the internet, I came across this detailed recipe from Cupcake Project. It was great, I had all the ingredients on hand, and the cupcakes were delicious!

You should definitely go check out their recipe as she's got some good tips, but I'm gonna write it out for you too. 

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup unsalted butter (room temp.)

1 cup sugar

2 oz of your favorite chocolate (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips)

2 eggs (room temp.)

2 egg yolks (room temp.)

9 tbs sunflower oil

2 tsp vanilla 

1/3 cup sour cream

1/2 cup water (room temp.)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F/175 C.

2. Prep your cupcake liners in your muffin pan. (I made home-made ones out of baking paper, and they worked amazingly! I'll share a DIY soon.)

3. Sift together your dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, cocoa powder) into a medium-sized bowl.

4. Using the paddle attachment on your mixer, cream together butter and sugar.

5. (Carefully) Melt your chocolate. (Dutch oven method, or very short time increments in microwave.)

6. Once the melted chocolate is cool to the touch, add it to the sugar and butter mixture.

7. Keep mixer going. Add eggs and egg yolks one at a time, making sure each one is incorporated before you add the next. Mix until just combined.

8. Mix in vanilla, sour cream and oil until just combined.

9. With the mixer going, add the dry ingredient mixture in 3 portions, mixing just until incorporated each time.

10. Mix in water until just combined.

11. Fill cupcake liners until 2/3 full. (Since I had higher "tulip" liners, I filled them a little more.)

12. Check for doneness at 18 minutes. I ended up needing an extra 10 minutes, because I made mine bigger. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

13. Take cupcakes out of the tin, place them on a cooling rack, and wait until they completely cool before trying to frost them.

(Makes 12-15, depending on size.)

As a bonus, here is my current favorite chocolate buttercream frosting:

Frosting:

- 3/4 cup room temperature butter

- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- pinch of salt

- 2 1/4 cup powdered sugar

- 3 tbs sweet and condensed milk

- about 4 tbs hot chocolate mix (like Nesquick)

The frosting was just the right amount for the cupcakes. Perfection.

I baked these to celebrate our son's first goal in soccer, and let me tell ya - I won all the mom points that day! Delicious!

A Very Hungry Caterpillar 1st Birthday Party

I like parties.  I love birthday parties.  I ADORE themed parties.

So, when Aidan's first birthday rolled around, there was no question in my mind - we were having a Very Hungry Caterpillar party!!!

I'm going to let you in on all the secrets.

Thankfully, the Very Hungry Caterpillar is a very colorful book.

The primary colors in it though are red and green.  So, that's what we went with.

Invitation:

Decor/Serveware:

- Fiesta wear dishes

- Little red and green tongs at Hobby Lobby

- A Very Hungry Caterpillar twist toy for the cake topper from amazon.com

- Very Hungry Caterpillar Napkins from carlemuseum.org

- Very Hungry Caterpillar book

- Food labels

- Water labels

- Juice boxes

- Red and green paper plates

- Red and green plastic utensils

- Lollipops

- Cupcake liners

- Paper grass

- Number "1" birthday candle

Food/Cake:

- Tie-dye cake mixes, white frosting (for the smash cake)

- Vanilla and chocolate cake mixes

- White frosting

- Red food coloring

- Green food coloring

- Apples

- Watermelons

- Strawberries

- Meat and cheese

- Butterfly shaped crackers

Favors:

- Dollar store bug catchers

- Gummy worms

- Bubbles

- Caterpillar party hats (made out of construction paper)

I made Aidan's tie-dye smash cake.  It looked so cool!  I layered them, and frosted the cake white.  Not my greatest work, but not too bad.

For everyone else, I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.

I dyed the frosting, and frosted the cupcakes.  Later on, I set them up to resemble the caterpillar.

On the way to the party space, the frosting on the cupcakes didn't hold up too well, but you'll see how it all turned out...

We had Aidan's party at one of my favorite spots here in Jacksonville.  It's an indoor play space called Bay n Bee.  It's so kid-friendly, and they are super helpful!  Everyone loved it, and it was great not having to worry about tear-down/clean up.  I would recommend them to anyone looking for a safe, fun and exciting place for a birthday party.

When the kids started arriving, they each got a Caterpillar party hat.  For the Caterpillar party hats, I took one piece of red construction paper, cut it in half long-ways, and stapled them together.  I cut out eyes and antennas, and glued them on.

For the favors, we bought dollar store bug catchers, put paper grass in the bottom, put in a few gummy worms, a little bottle of bubbles...

The table was set up adorably!

We also had the food table looking adorable.

We ended up having an amazing time, and even though he will never remember it, Aidan had a great time too!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Yummmmmm

I love Dr. Seuss.  

I know that's not a huge confession, as most anyone who's ever read any of his books feels the same way, however I REALLY love Dr. Seuss.

And like I've said before, give me theme, and watch me go wild.

Firstly, I wanted to do my nails in Dr. Seuss fashion.  I checked online, and found many cute ideas, and then realized, I didn't have any of the colors.  However, I do have the most thoughtful husband around. While at Target running some errands, he bought me 3 Dr. Seuss books, as well as matching nail polish.  So, that problem was solved.  

My Dr. Seuss "I love you" care package

I'm not very good at doing my nails yet, it's mostly just something I do while I'm watching TV or something.  So, I don't have a tutorial for the nails here.

All I do, is paint my nails a solid color, and then with a toothpick, I paint on any extra details.

This is how they turned out:

The Lorax, Cat in the Hat stripes, Truffula trees and a Thing 1!

After that, I had to think of some things I could do to decorate my classroom.  

I saw an idea on decorating a class door in Truffula trees on happymrsc.blogspot.com.  It didn't say how she made the trees themselves, so that's where my creativity had to come into play. 

For these Truffula trees you'll need:

Colorful tissue paper

Black construction paper

White paint (I actually used white out tape, for convenience sake)

Tape

Scissors

 I found some great, colorful tissue paper in our resource room, and got to work.  I folded the paper on top of itself, then cut the paper into about 2 inch strips, cut it like you would cut grass for a craft.  Then I would open it up, and fold it back onto itself, like this:

Then, I just started taping away, until the trees were the size I wanted.  Then, I added some black construction paper trunks, added some white stripes to them, and they were done.

The teacher in the room next to me, who is wonderful, and we do lots of things together, made a Lorax on her door, who is pointing to the Truffula forest on my door. 

THEN, our director asked me to make Truffula trees on the bulletin board in our drop-off room, which is a total "no-man's-land".  I was happy to do it, and perfect my Truffula tree technique.  Again, my wonderful husband came to the rescue, and came to help me out.  More cutting, taping and stapling, and:

Next, I needed to come up with something for my students to do.  That bulletin board looked like a perfect backdrop to me.  Also, I've been intrigued by the hipster mustache and bow tie craze, and I finally had a way to incorporate it into my lesson plans:

Dr. Seuss hipster photo props!

I found the original idea on blog.kidzui.com and then decided to make it my own.

Here's what you'll need:

Poster board (the number of kids you have, or size of your props will determine how much you'll need)

Pencil

Black Sharpie

Paint (orange, yellow, red)

Large Popsicle sticks

Tape

I drew out with pencil the outline for mustaches and bows.  Then I traced it with black sharpie.  I had the boys cut out the mustaches, and the girls cut out the bows.  Then, the boys painted their mustaches orange or yellow (even though, the Lorax's is yellow, I wanted to add just a little more color), and the girls painted their bows red or red and white striped.  After that, I taped the popsicle stick to the back, and voila!  Hipster Dr. Seuss photo props!  You could use this idea for a class party, like I did, or even a birthday party photo booth!  How cute would that be!?

My adorable kiddos!!!

Now that all that is done, let's party!

But wait!  What to wear, what to wear...?

If you know anything about, you are well aware of the fact, that I will pounce on any chance I get to dress up.  I'm not sure what it's rooted in - cough, cough - mom!!!

And because of said culprit, I am always partial to home made.  

So, when I decided I was going to be "Thing 1", I got cracking.  

What you'll need to be a "Thing":

Red T-shirt

White felt

Black Sharpie

Scissors

Plastic hairband

Blue yarn

Blue tissue paper (optional)

Hot glue gun

Felt circle

I found a red shirt for under $4 at Walmart, which I was very happy about, and even went back and bought it in a couple other colors, because it was comfortable, and nice and long.  Then, I found some great, heavy-duty white felt, for only $2.77 a yard.  Once home, I traced a circle onto the felt (I used a dinner plate as a guide), traced over it with black sharpie, and wrote "Thing 1" on it (I would suggest writing it in pencil first).  I had roped the same teacher from earlier into being "Thing 2" with me, and she had the genius and adorable idea of adding "Thing 3" to her growing baby bump.  So cute!  So, I also traced hers.

Then I cut it out, and because I wanted to be able to reuse the T-shirt, I only pinned it to my shirt. 

 

Next for the hair.

I found a great yarn wig tutorial on www.u-createcrafts.com, but decided it was a little more involved than I wanted.  However, I will be keeping this in my arsenal, I'm sure I will need it one day.

I decided to go for something a little more wearable, and cuter.  I have this clear, plastic hairband that I've had laying around for ages.  Also, I had some blue yarn (that was the perfect color) and some more of that tissue paper on hand.  

First, I covered the hairband in the blue yarn, using a hot glue gun, which wasn't really necessary, I just wanted it to look "finished".  Next, I did the exact same thing to the tissue as I did for the Truffula trees, and glued it to the felt circle I'd already cut out.  

After that, I wrapped the yarn around my fingers:

Then, tied it off with a small piece of yarn:

Finished product!

Then cut the yarn on the other side.  Then, I glued that to the felt circle too.  I kept doing that until it was the size that I wanted, and then:

Done!  (I feel like I should be on my way to a -
crafty, and laid back, but still - English wedding)

Next, a girl's gotta eat!

I found a super-cute idea on purplecarrotsinc.blogspot.com, and even a couple other places, for

 "Thing 1" cupcakes.  It's very simple.  It's just a red velvet cupcake, with a little cream cheese frosting and some blue cotton candy sticking out of it for the "hair".  Now, I'm going to tell you something that the other blogs didn't.

YOUR COTTON CANDY WILL MELT!!!

I made my cupcakes the night before, and everything was going great, I put the frosting on, and then the cotton candy, and they were adorable!  I turned to do some other things, and... when I turned back around the cotton candy had completely melted.  Now, I wasn't sure if it was because my cupcakes were maybe still a little warm (which they weren't, because that would be an amateur mistake, but I was looking into all the possibilities), or if it was the moisture in the frosting.

So, I wiped off the frosting and sad cotton candy.

I decided that I would frost the cupcakes, and then the next day, I would put the cotton candy on RIGHT before I served them.

So, the next day, I took them to school, and hoped for the best.  I did prepare, though for it not to work.  So, I made cupcake toppers.  I took some toothpicks with me to work.  Then I traced circles, went over it with sharpie, and decorated them.  Then, I taped them to toothpicks.  Really simple, really easy, but a tried-and-true way to spruce up some cupcakes.

Then, right before the party, I added the cotton candy.  (For the kids, I didn't add the toppers, I figured toothpicks weren't something they needed to have access to)

Here's what I had for the party 

(but there are so many more things you could add to a Dr. Seuss party menu):

Strawberry and marshmallow skewers (to look like the Cat in the Hat's hat)

Thing 1 and 2 cupcakes

Rainbow Gold Fish (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish)

Swedish Fish (same)

Then, for the teachers (I figured they could handle the toothpicks), I added the toppers.

Please pardon the ugly pan and backdrop.  There weren't many places I could take a picture of them.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Baking 60 cupcakes!!!

Mmmm, cupcakes!

So, having a husband who's a youth pastor makes for a lot of pizza, staying up all night (church lock-ins), and of course fundraisers.  So, every couple months the youth serve lunch after church.  $5 will get you a bowl of soup (this time my honey made a corn chowder-yummm!), a grilled cheese sandwich, a pop (yeah, I'm in Ohio now, I say pop) and a desert.  When it comes to desert, people automatically look at me, which I don't mind. :)  So, I'm baking 60 cupcakes.  Sometimes it's a plus to have a small church.  I bakes strawberry, lemon and funfetti.

Here they all are!  (Notice our cupcake-aholic dog eyeballing them.  He is totally waiting for me to blink, so he can steal one.)

I really hate how the mixes never quite make 2 dozen (I always end up with 20.  No matter what I do.) and the frosting never covers them all like I would like.  So, I decided to go with just a dollop of frosting.  I'm not over-joyed with how they turned out, but for $1.25, they're not so bad. :)

This is how I started frosting them.  Then, after I went through 1/2 1 can, having only frosted 8, I decided to cut back.  That brought these...

Still cute though! :)

So, if you're anywhere in the Willard area, come to our church tomorrow, and support the youth group!

So, my sweet hubby got me a frosting bag with a petal tip.  I was thinking of adding roses to these, but the roses were harder than I thought.  Plus I don't have all the right tools.  So, I put it on one, to see how it would look.  I love it.  But I still need lots of practice.  So, once I've mastered it, I'll post about that, and give you detailed instructions.  Until then, this'll have to do! :)